THIS WEEKEND
Paramount Pictures scored a box office touchdown over the long weekend
with its high school football film Varsity
Blues which grossed $17.5M over the Friday-to-Monday
holiday frame, according to final
results. Starring James Van Der Beek (Dawson's Creek) and Oscar-winner
Jon Voight, Varsity Blues
fought off numerous other freshmen films and rushed to a new record for
movies debuting over the Martin Luther King holiday weekend beating the
$14M earned by Legends of the Fall
four years ago. The Paramount film's three-day gross of $14.8M is the third
best January debut ever behind Star Wars
- Special Edition and A
Civil Action. Opening in 2,121 theaters,
the Brian Robbins-directed picture averaged a meaty $8,258 over the four
days.

Varsity Blues
targeted and connected with teenagers and young adults benefiting from
heavy promotion on MTV which also produced the movie under the MTV Films
banner. With a surplus of teen horror pictures in the last few months,
it seems that younger moviegoers are tired of seeing themselves get hacked
to death and want more realistic stories that they can relate to, which
is what Varsity Blues
offered. Teen heartthrob Van Der Beek proved he could turn his television
fans into ticket buyers and should see more film opportunities open up
for him. Whether this teen idol follows the career path of John Travolta
or David Cassidy is yet to be determined. But with a production cost of
$15M, Paramount will break even after just one week of theatrical play
and a video release when students go on summer vacation should bring strong
home video sales making Varsity Blues
a very profitable motion picture for the studio.

Patch Adams
laughed up $12M over the Friday-to-Monday period bringing its cume to $98.7M.
Dipping just 5% from last weekend's three-day gross, the Tom Shadyac comedy
should cross the $100M mark by Friday. Patch
Adams will give Robin Williams his seventh
such domestic blockbuster of the decade joining Tom Hanks, who should also
hit the lucky seven mark by Friday with You've
Got Mail, as the only stars to achieve
this feat.

Slipping to third place,
A Civil Action
grossed $11.8M over the four-day frame. Off 22% from last weekend's three-day
figure, the John Travolta legal thriller has taken in $31.3M thus far and
should finish its run with about $60-65M. A
Civil Action is distributed domestically
by Buena Vista and by Paramount overseas.

After three weeks of
limited release, Terrence Malick's long-awaited feature The
Thin Red Line ambushed theaters and grossed
$11.4M over the long MLK weekend. Expanding into 1,528 locations nationwide,
the World War II epic averaged a sturdy $7,436 per platoon capturing the
second best average in the top twenty. The
Thin Red Line appeared on many critics'
ten best lists of 1998 and starred a wide assortment of popular actors
including Sean Penn and Nick Nolte. The nearly three-hour length of the
$53M film reduced the number of screenings per day in most cinemas, but
moviegoers were still attracted to the much-talked-about film. With $14.4M
in the barracks, The Thin Red Line
will now need positive word-of-mouth to ensure a successful run.

Rounding out the top
five was At First Sight,
starring Val Kilmer and Mira Sorvino, which saw $8.4M over the four-day
period. Generating heat in 1,814 theaters, the MGM/UA release averaged
a so-so $4,655 per site. The female-skewing romance performed best with
adults over 25 and served as a decent alternative on Sunday to the NFL
playoff games.

Holiday holdovers continued
their sprint towards nine digits over the long MLK weekend. Stepmom
grossed $7.8M, down 2%, pushing its cume
to $72M. Youve Got Mail
slipped 18% and grabbed $6.6M raising its sum to $98.9M. The
Prince of Egypt earned $6.3M in ticket
sales giving it $82.6M to date.

Other new releases
over the weekend were met with cold receptions from moviegoers. Universal's
expensive special-effects pic Virus,
starring Jamie Lee Curtis, took in just $6M over the Friday-to-Monday period.
Infecting 2,019 theaters, Virus averaged
a poor $2,980 per location. In Dreams,
a psychological thriller directed by Neil Jordan, opened outside of the
top ten with only $4.6M. The DreamWorks film stars Annette Bening and Robert
Downey Jr. and averaged a sleepy $2,751 in 1,670 sites over the four days.
Both pictures were victims of a crowded marketplace as ticket buyers showed
little interest in the subject matter or stars.

Miramax's Shakespeare
in Love continues to charm the box office
and is displaying fantastic legs. With $4.7M, the Gwenyth Paltrow period
comedy has amassed $21.3M thus far and is being fueled by superb word-of-mouth.
Still playing in less than 650 sites, Shakespeare
may win a few Golden Globe statues next
weekend further igniting its box office potential.

Now online, Box
Office Guru's annual Studio Spotlight
report which reviews the box office events of 1998 with stories on the
performance of each studio.

Compared to projections,
Varsity Blues
and The Thin Red Line
both opened better than my respective forecasts of $11M and $9M. At
First Sight, Virus,
and In Dreams
all opened close to my respective predictions of $10M, $7M, and $5M.

Take this week's NEW
Reader Survey on the Golden Globe Award
for Best Picture. In last week's survey, readers were asked which of this
weekend's new films would open the strongest. Of 1,708 responses, 48% chose
The Thin Red Line,
21% selected At First Sight,
17% said Virus,
9% predicted Varsity Blues,
and 4% voted for In Dreams.

The top ten films grossed
$92.6M over the four-day period which was up 2% from last year when Titanic
was docked at number one with $30M, and up 27% from 1997 when Beverly
Hills Ninja opened in first place with
$12.2M.

Be sure to check back
on Thursday for a complete summary, including projections, for next
weekend when Sharon Stone's Gloria
debuts.

This column is updated three times each week
: Thursday (upcoming weekend's summary),
Sunday (post-weekend analysis with
estimates), and Monday night (actuals).
Source : EDI, Exhibitor Relations. Opinions expressed in this column are
those solely of the author.